Problematic Words

Note: This is by no means an exhaustive list, nor are these definitive definitions. Rather these are my observations to which I welcome discussion and dissenting opinions. I also use the term Progressive to describe those on the Far Left. You can replace the word Progressive with Ctrl Left, Alt Left, Far Left, authoritarian Left, and liberal (as far as liberal means American liberal/Democrat that is far to the left). I try to distinguish those on the extreme left from those who are more center left or those on the left that do not fully understand the ideology that has a hold of them. Remember that words matter and to never yield linguistic ground to those you disagree with, for if you use their definitions than you are playing their game and even if you win, you still only win their game. Words are the ground the culture war is being fought and you do not want to fight a battle on the ground your enemy has selected.

People of Color – This is simply just a fancy way of saying anyone who is not white. It is a way of excluding someone based on skin color that is hiding behind a mask of compassion. It is also discriminating against the ‘People of Color’ by assuming that all people who are not white have the same experiences and desires. This is why you see such vitriol directed toward ‘People of Color’ who defy the norms being forced on them by Progressives.

Ally – This is the term used to describe people who are white or male that support those who are not. Again this is a way to separating white people, men and white men in particular from other groups. It carries connotations that while you might support Progressive ideas you cannot fully become part of the group, simply because of immutable characteristics determined at birth. It also implies that you do not get to call the shots but need to be submissive to those who call you an ally or you will lose that status and become an enemy.

Islamophobia – This word is simply a cudgel to beat people into submission. It is used to brand those opposed to the Progressive party lines as someone driven by hate of someone else. It is curious that there is no corresponding word for other religions, no Christophobia, no Buddaphobia, and no Hinduphobia. The closest thing is Anti-Semitism which usually takes the form of racism. Criticize the Bible, put a crucifix in a jar of urine and burn the American flag and all is fine, but criticize Islam or draw a picture of Mohammed and you’ll be branded an Islamaphobe and probably have riots of Muslims that are excused by mainstream media as justified outrage. It also holds back those Muslims who seek to reform the religion away from the violent fundamentalism prevalent among terrorist groups. It also keeps those Muslims seeking changes in a system of oppression.

Racism – The Progressives are trying to change the meaning of the word racism to mean Power + Privilege. This is so they can justify racist acts by simply denying they are racist. If someone lacks power or privilege then they cannot be racist from this perspective. They are in essence absolving themselves from the sin of racism in their core ideology.

Privilege – This word simply means someone who is doing better than someone else. Of course the Progressive will attribute this success to systemic racism and unconscious bias as opposed to sacrifice and hard work. Again white straight men are the most privileged regardless of everything else, the poorest white male is more privileged than the daughters of former president Barak Obama. This word is also used as a slur against those who disagree with the Progressive ideology.

Unconscious Bias – This is the idea that people are inherently racist/sexist/homophobic etc. No scientific test has been developed to accurately determine Unconscious Bias and if you are asked to attend Unconscious Bias training I would recommend refusing to attend or recording it and sharing it with the world. No one regardless of intention has the right to force you to alter your unconscious, do not allow them access to the deepest areas of your mind, that is your and yours alone.

Systemic Oppression – This is the idea that any given system is set up to oppress certain people. While this might be true in that a hierarchy of competence will exclude the incompetent. The Progressive will generally be referring to a specific company or government agency keeping out ‘people of color’ and women. This is often cited as the reason for the need of equality of outcome.

Equity – This one has been hotly debated but when put forward by a Progressive it means that everyone ends up with the same in the end. While this might sound good on the surface the only way this is possible is through the use of force. It pushes aside hard work, talent, competence, and sacrifice. This means when the Progressive looks at any structure or system and do not see parity within that structure with society (50/50 men and women for example) than it is not equal and that is due to Systemic Oppression.

Intersectionality – This is the Progressive attempt to rectify the idea that a straight white woman has more privilege than a straight black woman. It is a way of organizing society and determining levels of oppression. Almost like a caste system, with white straight cis able-bodied men on the bottom (have the most privilege) and black queer Trans disabled woman on the top (has the least privilege). The interesting thing about intersectionality is that taken to its logical conclusion you end up with individuality. Meaning that no two people are going to intersect in the same way.

Hate Speech – This is just censorship hiding behind the mask of compassion. Since what is considered hateful is subjective it leaves it to those in power to determine what is and is not hate speech. Of course to the Progressive the only thing that is real in the world is power, so they can justify the use of it to do what they want.

If I left anything out please leave it in the comments below and I’ll do another post adding to this one.

Logos and Skyrim: Shouting Order From Chaos

The video game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was released on November 11^th 2011. Having played the last two installments in this series I eagerly awaited this game. I watch trailers, I read articles on it, and looked through reviews of early game play.

The game revolves around the story of the hero, the Dragonborn, and the return of dragons to the world. A hero using sword and sorcery to fight dragons seems like pretty standard video game fair but the game was a huge success.

It was not until 2017 that I realized the story of Skyrim was more than just a game, but rather a retelling of a powerful older story full of symbols that I knew but never recognized. This is the story of the hero and his journey.

This significance came to me as I was replaying Skyrim and listening to Professor Jordan Peterson. This is my attempt to untangle the importance of the hero’s journey to the individual and society through the game Skyrim.

The Hero’s Call

The game starts with the hero in the back of a cart with rebels and criminals, bound, on his way to his execution. This is an odd place for a hero to be yet this is how the journey starts.

The people with the Dragonborn are dangerous. This hints at the idea that the Dragonborn himself must be a dangerous person as well. The philosopher Carl Jung would say that the hero has integrated his shadow. Meaning that to be a hero you must accept that you are capable of evil and struggle against that capability.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn describes this more clearly when he wrote in The Gulag Archipelago that “Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts.” This is also seen in the Judeo-Christian concept of original sin. Meaning that sin or evil is within all of us and that is something we all must struggle with our whole lives.

Failure to recognize that you are capable of evil (Pride?) or recognizing it and refusing to resist it will cause an individual’s evil side to grow. It is this internal struggle within ourselves that we see played externally in the hero’s story.

The Dragonborn is also bound and on his way to execution. He was captured while wandering, seemingly without aim. This points to the idea that without a goal and without responsibility a person will find themselves in a bad place and on a fast track to death. This is seen played out clearly in young men without direction joining a gang or someone getting into drugs.

Humans have evolved our eye sight in order to have aim so that we are better at finding food. On one level humans have evolved the ability to aim in order to survive. Yet in order to aim clearly on a conceptual level we need to be able to articulate what it is that we want. It is hard to hit the target if you do not know exactly what the target is. Speech helps us clarify the thing at which we aim.

The Dragons Return

The hero is taken into a town and has his head placed on the chopping block. As the headsman raises his axe you hear someone shout, “what is that?!” A dragon lands on a tower above you and shouts, causing a hail of rocks. Chaos ensues.

It is this dragon’s shout (Speech) that frees the Dragonborn. He is freed from the execution as well as aimless wandering. In a very real, giant and dangerous way, responsibility hits the hero hard and calls directly to him. It says I am the biggest problem here, you need to deal with me or watch your world burn.

Dragons as a concept have been around for a long time. Professor Jordan Peterson sees the dragon as an amalgamation of predators of our early ancestors, combining the traits of snakes, birds, and large cats (like lions). If that was not bad enough it can also breathe fire and is intelligent. Despite the danger of dragons they possess gold, meaning there is something of value to be gained by defeating them.

Professor Peterson goes on to say that dragons as a symbol are the problem of all problems. From an evolutionary stand point the biggest problem our ancestors faced were predators. The dragon, the ultimate predator, logically stands in for the idea of problems.

It is from this reasoning that you see hero stories. Of course people would tell stories of the person who willingly went out into the world and killed those predators. Not only did they end the problem that predator posed, but they would be able to bring back food and perhaps a fir to keep them warm.

This is the reason dragons have gold. If you extract the idea out farther it explains that within problems are something useful and solving those problems will allow you to be rid of the predator and to bring back something of value to make things better, for yourself and society.

The society the Dragonborn finds himself in is in the middle of a civil war. On one side you have the Stormcloaks and on the other you have the Imperials/Empire. The motivations of these two groups are complex but for now all we need to know is that they are at war with each other, they were both at the execution and they both know that the dragons have returned.

If you approach these groups in the game it is clear that they are refusing to deal with the dragons and are still focused on fighting each other. To them it is more important to battle one another than it is to deal with the return of the dragons. They are blind to the real problem, the dragons, and what it could mean for the world. Instead it is up to the hero to take on this problem himself.

The dragons are returning all across Skyrim, but as you progress through the game you find out that they were not hiding somewhere but were in fact dead and are being brought back to life. Relating it to the real world you can see these old problems coming back to life.

The ghost of Communism has spread across college campuses and work itself into a multi headed dragon (hydra). Authoritarianism attempting to shut down free speech, people in masks looting and rioting in urban areas, and religious extremists murdering innocent people being excused due to Political Correctness. These dragons have been resurrected and are currently running free across the world until a hero is willing to step up.

Sky Shattering Thu’um

In Skyrim the hero has the power of a Thu’um or a shout. This is a type of magic that allows the hero to do amazing things simply by speaking words. The way the hero gains this power is by slaying dragons, absorbing their power and reading words of power from the past on dragon walls.

Words, spoken or written, are a person’s attempt to manifest an idea into the real world. By reading these words on the dragon walls, what the Dragonborn is doing is building his power based on the foundations of what has come before. He is resurrecting the culture and giving it new life.

The benefit of slaying the dragons is to gain power in order to use additional words. When the hero finds a dragon wall he cannot read all the words, only part of it stands out. This is the logos revealing itself to the hero, who will carry it into the world.

Logos is the root of the word logic and comes from a Greek word meaning, ground, plea, opinion, expectation, word, speech, account, reason, proportion, discourse. Logos in the West is a term used when describing Jesus as being the Word of God. Yet before that in Western philosophy the term was used by Heraclitus to mean “a principle of order and knowledge.”

It is a complex word and concept which Jordan Peterson describes as meaning something like “the articulated Truth.” (A YouTube video of Peterson explaining Logos here). When the Dragonborn kills a dragon and gains the power to shout, the game is acting out this idea. The idea that if you willingly go out and face down problems (dragons) you will gain knowledge and power (logos) which you can bring to the world to make it a better place.

Rescuing your Father from the Underworld

This is a common theme in mythology as well as in video games. Beowulf goes into the depths and fights Grendel’s mother, Pinocchio goes to the bottom of the ocean to save Gepetto, and the Dragonborn makes his way to Sovngarde.

These are all great stories in their own right and to dismiss them as superstition and fairy tale would be to miss out on the essence behind the story. First we must look at what the Underworld and the Father is and why the Father is in the Underworld.

The Underworld is the place you go when you die, an unknown place, a place that cannot be known. The Father is the old king or rather the culture built by those in the past. In these stories death is not the end, but rather a turning point. It is same idea that is represented by the tarot card death. Culture is always dying and being reborn because chaos is always pushing against order and to maintain order change (or chaos) is needed.

So the hero goes out into chaos, brings a part of that chaos back so that the culture can change in an attempt to maintain order. The hero going into the Underworld (chaos or the unknown) is his attempt to bring back something of value that will, hopefully, update society so that it will not collapse into chaos.

In Skyrim the main adversary is Alduin, a soul eating dragon that can rain chaos from the sky with a shout. He was defeated in the past through the use of an Elder Scroll (a fragment of the divine), yet this was only a temporary defeat. The Dragonborn must use the Elder Scroll and learn what the heroes of the past knew so that he can deal with the problem of Alduin and restore order to the world.

The hero does not destroy culture or society, but instead builds on it to make it better. He joins with the old heroes to defeat Alduin, using their power and his own to defeat the problem once and for all.

It is with the defeat of this dragon that order is restored to the world. Yet when the hero returns from the Underworld he sees several dragons flying overhead spreading across the world. This means that there are still problems in the world but the world is a little bit better with one less problem.

The Hero’s Song Lives On

The hero’s journey is the journey of each individual. The man who wakes up at 5am and goes to work all day so his kids will have a better future then he did is a hero. The mother who spends countless sleepless nights caring for a sick child is a hero. The hero is inside of us all and in order to access it we must understand that we are both hero and monster. That both good and evil is inside of all of us and that the first thing we must do is recognize that struggle and actively take part.

Each individual must use his logos to find what he is aiming at and shoot. There is no guarantee that you will hit your mark or that you are aiming at what you think you are. Yet by speaking the truth as clearly and as best you can you will have a chance of hitting the mark.

If society is falling apart the answer is not to tear it down and start over. Rather it is to deal with the problems by building on and renewing the foundation. Preserving the traditions of the past while updating them to meet current situations.

The story of Skyrim and the hero’s journey is so popular and powerful because it is the story of ourselves. We must look honestly at ourselves, recognize the problems in us and in our world and try to solve them by taking willing responsibility of them. It is in the solving of these problems that we ease the suffering of life for ourselves and those around us as well as in the world at large. The great thing about the story is that anyone no matter how inadequate or useless has this potential inside of them. That potential could be called the divine spark within us all.

Social Justice Utopia: A Brief Story

The police lights flashed in the neighborhood as two police officers stood over a man on the ground in handcuffs with a gag over his mouth. The younger officer motioned to his more experienced partner who was writing down some notes on a pad. The older officer looked up to see a woman approaching and put his pencil in the binding of the pad and placed the notebook in his pocket.

            “I’ll handle this rookie,” said the older officer stepping forward to meet the woman.

            “Why are you arresting my husband?” She demanded

            “Please stay calm. May I ask your preferred pronouns?” The officer said in a calm deep voice.

            Her eyes narrowed on the officer and she slowly said “She/her.”

            “Thanks you. Now this is your partner?”

            “Yes this is my husband.” She said her emphasizing the word husband and fixing her eyes on the officer.

            “I have not asked for his pronouns yet so I’ll have to take your word for it for now.” The officer said. He reached into his pocket and produced his notebook. “I have a few questions to ask you if you do not mind.”

            “I mind,” She said “But I assume I do not have a choice.”

            “You have a choice,” the officer said “We are only here to help.”

            “Yeah my choice is cooperate or end up like my husband there.” She pointed to the man in handcuffs on the ground. The cuffed man moved a bit and tried to look at her but the younger officer put his foot on the man’s back.

            “Do not resist, Hate Speaker.” The young officer said pushing his foot down on the man’s back. The young officer looked up at the woman to find fire in her eyes that startled him a bit. He lifted his foot and regained his composure by placing his hand on the gun on his hip.

            “Look at me miss,” the older officer said, “Is your husband a part of any hate group such as The Republican Party, The Sons of Reason, the Free Speech Movement, or the First Amendment of the Constitution Truther’s also known as the F.A.C.T.?”

            “No.” She said nothing more.

            “You know it is a crime to lie to a police officer correct?” The older officer said while writing something down.

            “I am aware.” She said steel in her voice.

            “Just making sure. Is your husband currently or has he ever been associated with infamous Hate Speech outlaws like Ben Shapiro, Carl Benjamin A.K.A Sargon of Akkad, or Jordan Peterson?” Her teeth clenched and she shook her head no. The officer wrote something in his notebook.

            “Why do you have a gag over his mouth? Can’t you take that thing off?” The woman asked looking between the two officers.

            “It is on for everyone’s protection.” The younger officer said his eyes narrowing as he looked down at the man on the ground. “He has already committed felony levels of Hate Speech, we would not want anyone, including you, to be harmed by the things this Nazi says.”

            “Nazi!? He is not a Nazi.” She said a growl in her voice.

            “That is for a Social Justice Tribunal to decide miss.” The older officer said. Her face dropped and tears started to come to her eyes. The young officer watched her for a moment and then dropped his eyes down to the man on the ground. His face contorted into one of rage and he started to kick the man in handcuffs. People started to gather around to watch.

            “You damn Nazi,” the young officer yelled as his put a boot to the ribs of the man, “See what your straight white cis patriarchal oppression is doing, you have hurt this woman here and now she is crying.” The woman looked shocked. A cheer came up from the crowd and people started to shout “No Nazi, No KKK, No Fascist USA.” The older officer stepped over and got between the man on the ground and his partner.

            “Keep calm, we have to follow the law.”

            “Why?” The young man asked forcefully “This is what the people want, this is Social Justice and why should we not stop these Nazi cockroaches now?”

            “He needs to go in front of the Social Justice tribunal and they will decide his fate.” A boo rose up from the crowd.

            “He is a filthy Nazi and he should be shot now.” The young officer said and put his hand on his holstered gun. The older officer looked him right in the eyes and shook his head no.

            “You are going to get into trouble, partner, we need to do this by the book.” The older officer said. The young officers narrowed his eyes at his partner.

            “Are you sympathizing with the Nazi?” The young officer said loudly. His partner’s eyes went wide.

            “Alleged Nazi.” The woman said stepping up next to the older officer. “That is for the tribunal to decide.” The young officer turned and stomped off toward the police car. “What exactly are you charging my husband with? What has he done?”

            “First degree spewing of directed Hate Speech, Second degree bigotry, and felony Hate Speech violation.”

            “What exactly did he say?” The woman asked

            “He told his friend he was throwing the football with quote “you throw like a girl.” The officer started to write in his note book again. “He started to call us Fascist and Racist when we pulled up. He said that we were only arresting him because he was white. That reminds me, I need to add aggravated assault of an officer.”

            “Assault? He hit you?” The woman asked surprised.

            “No but he called us names and my partner and I were hurt by his words, that is assault.” She could do nothing but watch. The older officer called his partner over and the two picked the man up off the ground and took him to the cop car. The crowd surrounded the officers and were screaming at the man. One person punched him in the face and the crowd cheered him as if he were a returning hero. The officers did very little to stop this but the older officer finally put him into the car. The woman with tears streaming down her face approached the car.

            She sucked in a giant breath of air and screamed, “Stop it you animals! He is a human—”

            A shot rang out and the woman was knocked on her back. A moment of silence fell over the crowd as the light fled her eyes a pool of blood form on the ground underneath her. The man in the back of the car started to thrash around pulling at the handcuffs until his wrist started to bleed and chewing at the gag trying to get it out of his mouth. The young officer put his gun back in his holster and got into the car with his partner.

            “What was that!” The older officer demanded.

            “She called the crowd animals, clearly relating the People of Color in the crowd to monkey’s. It was violent Hate Speech and we had a crowd to protect, I could not just let her hurt all those innocent people. Now call it in and let’s get this Nazi to the Facility of Rehabilitation and Social Justice.” The older officer put a call in on the radio for someone to come and collect the body and drove away.

            “You did not need to shoot her. She was a person.” The older officer said on the way to the Facility. The younger officer eyed him.

            “You are starting to sound like you have sympathy for her. She was a Nazi that was all I needed to know.”

            “That is not for you to decide, that is for the tribunal to determine.” The young officer just looked out the window and ignored his partner the whole way back. They booked the man, broken and bloody, into the Facility of Rehabilitation and Social Justice and then went to file their reports.

 

The man was found guilty of Nazism, Hate Speech and Promoting Genocide and was executed later that week. The older officer had two Antifa agents show up to his home and arrest him for Nazi sympathy and for two accounts of Failure to Denounce. The younger officer was promoted to captain and had a reporter write his story. He was given a medal for his bravery in the line of duty and for fighting systemic oppression in the police force.

Why Don’t We See Any Young Politicians?

I have been interested in politics for a long time. I believe it springs from my love of history and how politics plays a direct role in shaping the future. Recently, like a lot of people, I have become more involved in politics. I write this blog, I went to my first presidential campaign rally, went to my first political rally, went to my first protest, and joined a political party.

I have noticed that a lot of politicians tend to be older. Donald Trump is 71, Hillary Clinton is 70, Bernie Sanders is 76, John McCain is 81, Joe Biden is 75. The average age in the House is 57 years old and the Senate is 61 years old according to Congressional Research Service.

While this is not a bad thing in itself it does raise a question in my mind. Why are all our elected officials so old?

Retire Already

I firmly believe that the best person for the job should get the job regardless of age. Yet I personally hope that when I am 70, provided I make it that far, that I am doing something that I like in a home that I love with my wife, the love of my life. I expect I will be reading lots of books and writing none stop.

I do not understand why politicians just keep running for office when they should be enjoying a life of accomplishment. It could be a desire for power, love of the job, the feeling of wanting to help people, or just a fear that no one else can do what is right but them. Each politician will have a different reason I am sure.

Yet at some point you need to realize that enough is enough and you need to take some time for yourself. Step away and live a good life with your family and friends and have faith that the country will still run without you there. It has made it this for before you and will, hopefully, continue far into the future without you.

Established

I think it has something to do with being more established in the world the older you get. When you are young you are struggling to pay rent or mortgage and afford food. You are still trying to find your place in the world while trying to not die doing it.

You have gained respect in the community and wisdom that comes from experience. It is also less of a risk if you have an established place to fall back on if you do not succeed in gaining office.

There are some benefits to having older people as political leaders, but a balance is needed. Some things you need young and fresh eyes to understand.

Technology

Most the people in politics did not grow up with a computer in the home. They did not grow with the internet, they did not live in a world where everyone has a cell phone, and social media was not part of the fabric of everyday life.

Not having these technologies puts these older politicians at a disadvantage when trying to deal with the problems presented by these technologies. Internet culture is misunderstood and called racist or bigoted. It is almost as if they suffer from e-phobia, fear of internet culture.

It is true that the world is changing all the time. It is not the same as it was in 1900 as it was in the 1950, just as the 1950’s are not the same as the 1990’s. Much the same way the 1990’s are very different then things are today.

Youth in Politics

This is my blog so of course you are going to get my opinion, but I think that we need younger people to run for office. It is not that older people are incapable of doing a good job, but they need to be balanced out with younger people who have fresh eyes and fresh ideas.

I wish I had a better solution available and I know the comments are going to be, “If that is what you think needs to happen than be the change you want to see in the world.” It is something that I have thought about to be sure, but I personally I do not feel I am established enough to provide the credentials for public office.

I have ideals and a set of moral guidelines such as always erring on the side of liberty, smaller government, and personal responsibility. I do believe that young people, especially young men are crying out for someone to tell them they can stand on their own and can take personal responsibility for not only their lives but the world around them.

We are fed a constant diet of rights, right to healthcare, right to welfare, right to bathrooms, nothing but rights. Yet no one talks about how if you take personal responsibility for yourself that you can make things better for yourself and for those around you. That you can be the hero who reduces the suffering in the world by willingly facing problems, picking up the burden and carrying it forward as opposed to the person who is nothing but an endless source of resentment and hatred.

Yet that is my opinion, so take it for what it is worth.

Words as Violence

Words are not violence and it is dangerous to fail to address this point of propaganda. The Far Left, Regressive Left, Illiberal Left, Ctrl Left or Activist Left (whatever you want to call them) argue as if the idea that words are violence is fact.

Never agree or apologize when someone is making this statement or arguing from this perspective. To give here would cede linguistic ground and provide a path to erode the first amendment right to free speech.

People can use words offensively, crudely, and can say hateful things but with a few minor exceptions (such as direct credible threats) they are not violence.

I define violence in this blog post in the most common use of the word meaning, “behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.”

The Monopoly on Violence

The theory of the Monopoly on Violence is that the state, through a process of legitimation, is the only entity that can claim legitimated use of physical force. It is a more complex theory and you can find more in Thomas Hobbes’ book Leviathan and more recently Max Weber’s essay Politics as a Vocation, but for now this quick definition will do.

If the state has a monopoly on violence, they are the ones who can regulate its use, or rather state officials are the ones who will control its use. If we accept the idea that words are violence than we are being asked to accept that the state has a monopoly on the use of them.

This is a round-a-bout way of saying that the state should be able to control what people say. This idea was presented briefly in a talk between Jordan Peterson and Jonathan Haidt (here). To make the claim that words are violence is to say that some ideas are violence. Part of how we think about things is that we talk about them, but if we are not allowed to do that then we lose the natural right to our own ideas formed by interaction with other people through speech.

Words are NOT violence.

The Self-Defense Justification

If we again accept that words are violence than we also have to assume that you are allowed to defend yourself from this violence up to and including the use of force.

This would mean that you have the legal and moral justification for hurting someone with force who is saying something you do not like. This is where the Punch A Nazi meme comes from and how groups like Antifa justify their use of force.

Hate speech would be considered violence and could be met with violence. The biggest flaw in this sort of thinking is that each individual has a different idea of what hate is. Some people believe saying there are biological differences between men and women are hateful, even if it is backed up by biology and human experience.

This line of thinking just allows people to use force against those they do not like or agree with all while giving them the ability to live with themselves.

Words are NOT violence.

When you are on social media or having conversations in the world listen to what other people are saying. If they try to start from a position of words can cause harm or something of that sort you should immediately reject their position. That is not to say words cannot be dangerous, they certainly can be, but they are dangerous like a car or gun is dangerous, but words and speaking them is never violence.

If you consider words violence then you must allow the state, and by proxy state officials, to hold the monopoly on the use of words. You must also allow for the use of force against people speaking words that are considered violence. I know I have said this a few times, but I feel that it cannot be said enough.

Words are NOT violence.

Guilt by Association: Suppression of Freedom of Thought on University Campus

On November 1^st Lindsey Shepherd, a teaching assistant in Communications Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario Canada, showed a five minute video clip from TVO’s “The Agenda”. The episode featured a debate between two University of Toronto professors, Jordan Peterson and Nicholas Matte.

The debate was about the use of gendered pronouns, in particular for Professor Peterson the force behind the use of compelled speech that underlies the pronoun question (See the full video of the TVO debate here). After alleged claims of an undisclosed number of student complaints Shepherd was called to a meeting.

The Meeting

In this meeting were Supervising Professor Nathan Rambukkana, Associate Professor Herbert Pimlott, and Manager of Gendered Violence Prevention and Support Adria Joel along with Lindsay Shepherd. In the meeting Shepherd was accused of being “Transphobic” and “Creating a toxic climate.”

Professor Rambukkana stated in the interview that by playing this debate as she did that “This is like neutrally playing a speech by Hitler or a Milo Yiannopoulos speech from Gamergate.” When Shepherd asked to know the number of complaints or who is making the complaint Rambukkana said both were protected by confidentiality.

At one point Lindsey said “In a University all perspectives are valid.” To which Professor Rambukkana replied “That is not necessarily true, Lindsey.” Begging the question, who gets to determine which perspectives are valid and which are not.

Rambukkana also stated that “Laurier is being blanketed with white supremacist posters. There is another debate in society which is, whether or not North America should be a set of white nationalist states and that it should be ethnically cleansed of other people.” The claim about the posters could not be verified at this time. As for the claim of ethnically cleansing people from North America being a debate going on in society is outright ludicrous. Outside of a small fringe movement of the Alt-Right no one is debating this.

Adria Joel at one point makes the claim that showing the video is “Gendered based violence, transphobia, in that policy [gendered and sexual violence policy], causing harm to trans students by framing their identity as invalid or their pronouns as invalid… potentially invalid, which is under the Ontario human rights code is a protected thing, also something that Laurier holds as a value.”

Lindsey replied “Okay so by proxy me showing a YouTube video I am Transphobic and I caused harm/violence, so be it, I cannot do anything to control that.”

Prof Rambukkana chimed in “Okay so that’s not something you have an issue with, the fact that that happened, like are you sorry that…?

Both Joel and Rambukkana believe that showing a video that was aired on television in Canada is a form of violence and harm. They are working from the foundation that words are harmful and a form of violence against people, particularly Trans-people in this case.

Associate professor Herbert Pimlott said “Nazi’s actually used issues around the free speech idea in the 1920’s Wiemar Germany, which is what they are using now.” He is attempting to equate freedom of speech with Nazi’s. Understandable from someone who believes that words are violence, but foundationally incorrect.

The Apology

Unbeknownst to the other members of the meeting Shepherd was recording the whole conversation (full version here and abridged version here). She released this recording to the press.

On November 21^st the media coverage forced Wilfrid Laurier University and Professor Rambukkana to issues public apologizes to Lindsey Shepherd (President and Vice-Chancellor Deborah MacLatchy apology letter here and Rambukkana apology letter here).

The letter from the University apologizes for “the WAY the meeting was conducted” not that the meeting was conducted at all. In the next line MacLatchy tries to play the victim card claiming that the “staff and students involved in this situation have been targeted with extreme vitriol.” No evidence has been provided to substantiate these claims.

The apologies were only issued because of the media coverage and public outrage over this incident.

The Legal Framework

The Canadian Parliament passed Bill C-16 earlier this year which added gender expression and gender identity to the human rights code. Professor Peterson argued that this law and its surrounding legislation would produce a system that compels individuals by force to use words other people want them to use. Essentially compelled speech backed by force of law.

He also argued that refusal to do so would be a crime in Ontario. The action taken by University of Toronto a few days after his videos were released on YouTube vindicated him. This action by Wilfrid Laurier University also vindicates Peterson’s concerns about the passage of this bill.

The Wilfrid Laurier University Gendered and Sexual Violence Policy and Procedures defines Gendered Violence as, an act or actions that reinforce gender inequalities resulting in physical, sexual, emotional, economic or mental harm. This violence includes sexism, gender discrimination, gender harassment, biphobia, transphobia, homophobia and heterosexism, intimate partner violence, and forms of Sexual Violence. This violence can take place on any communication platform (e.g., graffiti, online environments, and through the use of phones).

The inclusion of emotional and/or mental harm in this definition allows it to be applied to anyone claiming to have experienced these actions. No objective proof can be obtained and no clear definition can be given to what emotional or mental harm entails. Under this definition I could claim the rainbow flag causes me emotional and mental harm because it discriminates against my cis identity and would fall under gender discrimination.

Of course this claim is as crazy as it sounds, but the Policy continues to get worse. In a section titled Policy the first paragraph 8.00 states Laurier condemns Gendered and Sexual Violence of any kind. Laurier recognizes that Gendered and Sexual Violence impacts people of all genders but it does not impact everyone equally; therefore, responses, prevention efforts, and supports will take into consideration the complexities of violence as experienced by people with Intersecting Identities.

This means that they will consider those with Intersecting Identities above those without. Clearly a form of discrimination and one based on sexism, racism, etc. Do not take my word for it, they define Intersection Identities in section 3.03 as Intersecting Identity/Intersectionality: an understanding that people and their experiences of Gendered and Sexual Violence are shaped by their connection to different social locations (e.g., race, ethnicity, Indigeneity, gender, class, sexual identity, geography, age, disability/ability, migration status, religion).

To take into consideration Intersecting Identities means the university will use those Identities in determination of the outcome. This means that the above mentioned identities will have to be weighted differently for each identity with the result that some identities will be weighed or considered more than others.

Under this policy a gay white man would have less consideration than a Bi Trans Black Woman. The foundation under this sort of policy or definition is that all people of any Identity group are exactly the same unless they have Intersectionality with another Identity group.

The problem with Intersectionality is that we have already figured this out in Western Culture. If you follow Intersectionality to its logical conclusion you end up with individuality due to the fact that you can break each individual person down into a near infinite number of Identities throughout time.

Beware

These sort of policies are not exclusive to Canadian Universities. In fact they are not exclusive to Canada or Universities. Large corporations like Google and Apple have diversity officers and departments, News organizations, such as the BBC, have hiring quotes based on race (see article here), and legislation is being passed at all levels of Government.

Hate Speech laws have sent people in the UK to jail for a tweet or Facebook Post (see article here). These sort of laws, policies and regulations are permeating our culture and they are limiting liberty far more than anything else.

In this case Lindsey Shepherd was able to stand up to the bullies of academia and come on out top, but the underlying policies wait just under the surface ready to drag off into the night those who dare to think differently.

Red Pill Poetry: No One Will Expect the Progressive Inquisition

I dare to blaspheme against the church of Social Justice

A Cult of Diversity that worships at the Alter of Power

Congregating in the street they call and answer, their hymns repeated

“No Trump, No KKK, No Fascist USA”

Slurs hang on people like the plague

Spread by association with one of the infected

Adherents are told to listen and believe, logic rejected

Windows shatter, cars in flames, businesses destroyed, people in red hats blamed

Words whispered in dark corners, Fascism, Alt-Right, Nazi, Hitler

Words are violence, justification found

Self-defense they claim while beating a man on the ground

Journalist, activist lines are blurred, fact check true

Misleading headlines an attempt to get you to view

Professors replace priests, administrators replace inquisitors that no one will expect

Say our words, they say, to do so is to respect

Refuse and you’ll get the social media rack, your life pull through your belly coiled for all to see

A new religion is born, the tenets of diversity,

Tolerance, and compassion taken to the extreme

I dare to blaspheme against the doctrine of Social Justice

An iron fist wrapped in a black mask of anonymity

I am branded with words of the heretic

Racist, Homophobe, Sexist, Xenophobe, Bigot, Islamophobe, KKK, Transphobe, Nazi

Those are slurs not arguments

The iron fist of Social Justice will prove brittle against the steel of logic tempered by truth

Logic a shield against a raised fist, truth a sword against lies

The Culture War rages, the Progressive inquisition is underway

Will you remain willfully blind and hope it passes you by

Or will make the choice to face danger willingly, to pick up your responsibility

And bare it?

The Normalization of Bigotry

The letter above is from the City Club of Portland and is signed by the President of the Board of Governors for that organization, Lisa Watson. In this letter she is rejecting research done by volunteers for City Club at the expense of volunteer time and energy simply because of their skin color.

“As part of the Board of Governors’ standard review of the research process, it came to our attention that every member of the committee was white. While we have no doubt that the committee members entered into this research project in good faith and with all best intentions, it’s clear that an all-white committee makes our research vulnerable to significant and substantive racial bias.”

What Lisa Watson is saying is that they are rejecting this study because it might be compromised by racial bias. Yet the criteria for making that assertion is based on racial bias. That a group of white people cannot do something effectively because they are white. You can read the full article and letter here.

Dear White People

This is not the only article that attacks white people. The New York Times published an article titled Can My Children Be Friends With White People? In this article the author, Ekow N. Yankah a professor at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshive University says that white people cannot be trusted and he will teach his children to mistrust white people.

Mistrusting a group of people based on skin color is racist. Teaching children to mistrust people of a certain skin color is racist. As a professor he is not only teaching his own children not to trust white people but teaching other people’s children that white people are not to be trusted.

He does give a pass to white people who go and protest and do what he likes, essentially saying that the only white people you can be friends with are the ones who will do what you want.

Almost one year ago on December 25^th 2016 George Ciccariello-Maher an Associate Professor at Drexel University tweeted out saying “All I want for Christmas is White Genocide.” He followed that tweet up with a clarifying tweet saying “To clarify: when the whites were massacred during the Haitian Revolution, that was a good thing indeed.”

He tried to play it off as a joke aimed at criticizing and mocking the alt-right idea of white genocide. Yet if you turned the statement around and replaced white with any other skin color that would get you fired on the spot. Ciccariello-Maher was placed on administrative leave on October 11^th 2017 after blaming the Las Vegas Shooting that left 59 people dead on a system that favors white males.

Sally Boynton Brown, the Chairwoman of the Idaho Democratic Party, said in a speech while running for Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair that “My job is to shut other white people down when they want to interrupt. My job is to shut other white people down when they say, ‘Oh, no, I’m not prejudiced; I’m a Democrat; I’m accepting. My job is to make sure [white people] ‘get’ that they have privilege.” (Read the article here or watch the video here)

Sally Boynton Brown said this among cheers. She also said “I am from Idaho, we are so white” as if being white were something bad to be. That white people need to be ‘schooled’ so that we can move forward as a country.

This is someone who holds a political office in the Democratic Party. Someone who was seen as enough of a leader that she thought she had a chance to win the DNC chair position.

There are several articles like this. Sargon of Akkad a well known YouTuber made a video that does a great job of explaining this narrative here.

Every Narrative Needs a Villain

News media, universities and the political left are trying to build up white people are a sort of monolith. That is because the far left and the Democrat Party focuses on the rights of groups as opposed to the rights of individuals. (See my previous post on that here).

They need people to fit into groups so they can then claim to be fighting for those groups. To fight for a group you must be fighting against something. You cannot fight against the government because there are virtually zero laws that discriminate based on race or gender. Also you do not want to fight the government if you are running for office because you will be the government if you get elected.

Instead you make the government the answer, with you as the elected official of course, and you point to something else as the problem. The ‘problem’ a lot of media outlets and universities are pointing to is white people.

To be fair there have been some horrible white people and there still are horrible white people. Yet to pretend that this is exclusive to white people is to deny context, reality and history.

Exclusionary Tactics

The term People of Color (POC), which is often used in the media and by Progressives is a term designed, consciously or unconsciously, to exclude white people. Think about the term, who is a person of color? Anyone who is not white of course. So when a Progressive says there is racism against People of Color what they are really saying is that white people are racist.

To the Progressive white people cannot be part of the group, they can only be allies. Being an ally means doing everything that the Progressives say is right without question, you can see that in this video here. It also means that you can help the group but you can never truly be part of the group.

By redefining racism and using terms like POC and ally the Progressives are actively creating fault lines among people in order to divide them into groups to get them on their side. At times this turns against them and you get groups like the Alt-Right, who believe in a lot of the same ideas as the Progressive left, just on the white people side.

Why?

The activists, journalists, media pundits, university professors, and anyone else with a Progressive bent to them will tell you they are doing this to help POC, to destroy systemic racism that is at the foundation of Western Civilization or some other flowery way of saying they are helping people.

That is what they will say they are doing, and it might even be what they believe they are doing, but I am reminded of a quote from the bible Matthew 7:20 “Therefore by their fruits you will know them.”

So what kind of fruit is being produced by this Progressive tree? Has it fed the hungry, made suffering less for humanity or has it caused people to turn out in the street and destroy things? The fruits I have seen produced are riots in the street, people being attacked for defending freedom of speech, and division being created along any sort of identity lines that people associate with. POC versus white, LGBTQ versus straight, rich versus the poor, men versus women, Republican versus Democrat, and the list of this sort of fruit goes on and on.

The roots of this Progressive tree is Post Modernism growing in the soil of Neo-Marxism. Post Modernism boils everything down to power, if someone is more successful it is because they have more power, while Marxism boils everything down to oppressor versus oppressed. In this ideology if you are doing better than someone else, it is not because you are more competent but rather that you have more power and are using that power to oppress others.

Combine this with the idea of group’s rights and group identity and taking the data that on average white people are doing well, you will find the justification for the hatred of white people. Terms are developed and words redefined to separate white people from others. This is done so that people can manipulate others into doing what they want so they can possess power to make the world a better place.

I just wonder how many bodies they will need to stack up in their attempt this time.